Chatham-Kent's mayor urges feds to help settle refugees in rural Ontario where the jobs are

Toronto has a refugee crisis with too many newcomers and no place to put them, and Chatham-Kent's Mayor Randy Hope has a solution — his community has jobs with few people to fill them.

But Hope insists that Ottawa needs to help, and that's the message he brought to a House of Commons standing committee on citizenship and immigration earlier this week.

"You've got communities similar to mine who need workers — whether it's in the automotive industry, agriculture or general labour — and it's so important governments support these small communities," Hope said on CBC Radio's Windsor Morning. 

"We're all hungry for workers."

The mayor said  the government needs to provide financial support for newcomers' transition to the community while they go through an application process seeking asylum or refugee status in Canada.

If a person is working, the federal government is going to get a return.- Randy Hope, Mayor of Chatham-Kent

"If it takes two years for you to file your application and wait two years to find out, are you going to make a financial investment to buy a house and establish yourself in a community? Most people are going to wait," he said. 

Hope said he told the committee— which he was invited to address— that when people feel more established and have good-paying, permanent jobs, they'll be more likely to buy a home and plant roots. 

He said the skill set of newcomers is "very high," and his municipality would like to hold a job fair in Toronto to present people with opportunities.

"If we propose an opportunity that would exist in a community, persons would feel more comfortable taking that opportunity, contributing to that community and making it their home," he said. "If a person is working, the federal government is going to get a return."

Not just about jobs

Brining in newcomers to Chatham-Kent would help the municipality solve a few other problems too, Hope said. 

"We're always talking about increasing our population in Chatham-Kent," he said. "It doesn't just offer a solution for our employers but our classrooms, our school boards, and local stores and businesses." 

Because of that small population, Hope said the municipality's tax base cannot support housing refugees, even for a short while. He said rural communities have the job demand but not the support from the federal government. 

"Our tax base is drawn from 43 people per square kilometre. When you look at that you can't ask local communities to support that through a tax base," he said. 

A multicultural landing place

Arif Virani, parliamentary secretary to the minister for Canadian heritage and multiculturalism, spent three days touring southwestern Ontario this week. On Wednesday, he was in Chatham-Kent, talking with the mayor and residents.

"We met with some leaders from the Korean community, Portuguese community, Italian community, the Muslim community, and all of them had similar things to tell me about the welcoming nature of Chatham," he said.

"How they're really taking on this idea about integrating people in a positive way, that they're looking to both solutions that are oriented towards the community client, but also understanding how employers and other businesses and other community organizations can adapt and be a bit more flexible in how they approach integration."

Virani is urging people to move on from "tolerating" cultural difference to celebrating them.